How Job Coaches Are Helping People Start Careers And Keep Them

A Professional Perspective Through the Eyes of Job Coach

The role of a job coach is more than just finding jobs for individuals with disabilities. A job coach (formally known as an Employment Specialist) provides a specialized type of mentorship intended to improve self-advocacy, employability skills, and work culture behavior. In short, we help people get jobs AND keep them. It’s one thing to land a job, it’s another entirely to maintain a high-level of work productivity that will lead to long-term employment and advancement. That’s why we use a “person-centered approach” that helps us meet the needs of the participant with the needs of the employer. Using this methodology, we have placed individuals in beneficial work environments that have benefited both employees and businesses alike.

Don’t Mistake my Mistakes…

No matter how much we try to avoid mistakes, everyone makes them. Also, it’s during our working hours when we’re most likely to make these mistakes. Have you ever made slipped up and thought to yourself, “I could have done things better” or “what could I have done different?” Well, a job coach can assist in rereinforcing task responsibilities and work culture professionalism, creating different intervention plans that are personalized to the person’s learning style. This provides the individuals with a different perspective of how to learn their job roles by using a method called task analysis, meaning to break down step-by-step instructions of job performance and delivering support at any given level required for understanding of job role expectations.

If you are someone that has struggled with obtaining or maintaining employment oreven are new to the workforce, having a job coach as an adviser and advocate can lead to advantages and promotions to different avenues of job opportunities. A job coach is there to mentor, advise, and provide a different perspective to your capabilities while encouraging growth to your potential in your future career endeavors.

About the Author

Jessica Gil graduated from Kean University with a bachelor’s degree in recreation administration with highest honors, Summa Cum Laude.

Her concentration was in therapeutic recreation for people with disabilities. She then went on to become certified as a Therapeutic Recreational Specialist (CTRS).

She chose to work in the field of support services to make a positive impression on others while helping them find their path to their own perception of success. She currently works as a job coach for Easterseals New Jersey.

I have never struggled to obtain employment. Except for that one time, after submitting my resume, going for the interview, just to be waiting for over an hour while the interviewer was giggling on the phone and although she was expecting me, she did not even acknowledge me and harassed me. Apparently the available job was already promised to a close friend of hers. I went back to my car, called my then case worker and cried.

Hello Ina,
Im sorry you had that awful job interview experience, these are reasons why we need to advocate for ourselves and speaking up with professionalism of what the next steps are when at the potential job site, if we are awaiting an interviewer for over 30 minutes, it is up to us to ask whether they are ready to see us or if they would kindly like to reschedule if this time and date was of an inconvenience to the interviewer. At the end of the day, we have employers that are still not fully understanding of disability rights or even that of full respect for the hard working job seeker. This is why we have to make theses choices where if we automatically see that the potential work place already has an inappropriate manager, makes us feel uncomfortable, we have to question ourselves, it is really the best work environment for you to thrive? My say is to always take account the possible work culture of the job and always remember you should be feeling respected as a possible contributor to a company.